SPRINGFIELD - Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet and Mayor Domenic J. Sarno announced plans Wednesday afternoon for a new program for preventing crime in neighborhoods by concentrating on traffic violations.

The program was announced at an afternoon press conference at police headquarters.
Called the Data Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic Safety, or DDACTS, the deployment will be conducted periodically over the next three months, and is funded by federal stimulus funds, Fitchet said.

Officers will be deployed on overtime specifically to address traffic violations, such as speeding, running red lights, and reckless driving.

Fitchet said the tactic is a brand new approach to policing that has only been employed in a few locations including Fitchburg, but it is based on 20 years of study by national crime researchers.

Essentially, the finding is that where there are high levels of crime are also areas where there are high levels of traffic accidents, Fitchet said. By flooding those areas with police to enforce traffic laws, they will prevent crime before it happens.

The first deployment was on Saturday, hours after a State Street shooting that killed one man, injured another and led to a gun battle between police and the suspect at Cambridge and Burr streets.

Fitchet said DTACTS was in the work for some weeks and the launch was coincidental to the Saturday violence.

Sarno called the deployments “place-based policing,” and said “There seems to be overlap. Where there are high traffic incidents, it coordinates to high crime areas.”